


Never Coming Back From This

by Prix



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Injured/sick while lost in the wilderness, M/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Slash, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23979124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix
Summary: Slade learns to feel a sense of mercy toward Oliver, a mistake from which he would never recover.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Slade Wilson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 47
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	Never Coming Back From This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BookofOdym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookofOdym/gifts).



Violence has a way of getting in the blood and never coming out. Slade knows this as well as anyone. He wants to get off this godforsaken island as quickly as possible, to see his son again, but it is not home or family or marriage that he will be returning to. That ship, as it were, had sailed a long time ago. 

Sometimes, at night, the wind off the sea picks up and whips across the island as if to remind everyone on it just how much they might as well be off the edge of the map. He wonders if Fyers and his men still have it in their souls to miss homes or families or whatever else it is they left behind to come here, to bleed more war and death into the world. 

He is allowing the kid - an American frat boy, but not even that - to get some sleep. He has been training him hard, trying to make something other than a dead man out of him. It is hard to believe that he will ever harden into the kind of person that will bear violence well. And yet, if he wants to survive, he has no choice. 

It is especially hard to believe that he will make this transformation in time as Slade tried to doze through the unpleasant, wet sound of Oliver’s snoring. It is worse tonight for some reason, sounding thick and full of mucous. 

He does his best to ignore it for a while, deferring to the lost art of being considerate. Finally, he picks up a boot and throws it at Oliver’s thigh. 

Oliver starts, taking a gasping breath as if he is trying not to drown. Slade can hear the rattle at the back of his throat. 

“You’re not sick, are you?” Slade asks, the moment he sees the whites of Oliver’s eyes. 

Oliver is still a bit delayed before he groans and focuses his eyes on him. 

“What? No,” he says. He still breaths in a wet sound. Slade eyes him with a piercing stare. Oliver looks back at him, his eyelids heavy but forming a little glare. “Sick of being on this island, maybe.” 

“I think we can all say that, including Fyers and his men,” Slade said. 

“Nah, I think they enjoy it,” Oliver replies bitterly. Another sniff. 

“What’s the matter with you?” Slade presses. 

“Nothing,” Oliver replies, petulant like a teenager. 

Slade doesn’t have the patience for it. He gets to his feet and walks across the shelter of the ruined plane, going to get himself some drinking water. 

“Are you ready to go again?” he tries. 

“Please,” Oliver begs. He sounds pitiful. 

“‘Please’ what?” 

“It’s still dark out, and it sounds like a hurricane out there. I’m cold,” Oliver supplies, each reason as important to him as the last. 

“You know that our enemy does not care much if it is night or day…” Slade answered, taking a drink as he awaits Oliver’s answer. 

“If I don’t get some sleep and heal up a little, I’m not gonna have an enemy to fight,” Oliver insists. He’s whining, but he has a point. 

Sighing, Slade gets some water for Oliver, too. He brings it over to him and crouches down beside him. 

Oliver looks at him with a surprised expression in his eyes. It pierces through Slade’s usual defenses, surprising him in turn. He puzzles at it, curious in spite of every reason he has not to wonder a thing about this boy Yao Fei has sent to him as his last, only hope. 

“What?” Slade asks, when he does not immediately understand the soft, open look on Oliver’s face. It is the very opposite of the kind of look he ought to have on his face around a man like Slade, no matter what his relationship to him. 

Oliver is not his son, and he is not yet well-known enough to him to be counted a friend. Slade is not sure he has ever been very good at knowing his friends from his enemies. He is an ally, but that is a matter of necessity and circumstance. It could change as quickly as the wind outside, and Oliver has sometimes alluded to being a less than loyal young man, however craftless he seems to be. 

He should not care, and yet he wonders,  _ who is Oliver Queen?  _ Who will he be? 

“What-what?” Oliver asks, showing his remarkable intelligence. 

Slade scoffs at his own wonder. 

“That stupid look on your face,” he counters, as much to himself as to Oliver. 

“Oh,” Oliver says. Finally, he reaches out and takes the bottle from him. He lets his hand linger, too close. Slade isn’t sure which of them failed to pull away in time, but his masculinity is not so insecure as to react too suddenly to the touching of hands. 

“Oh?” he prompts, impatiently. 

“It’s just that… you’re being nice,” Oliver replies. He finally pulls the water bottle away and sets it atop his thigh. He immediately picks it back up again and hisses. “Fuck,” he complains to himself, in that way that he often does with a loose tongue that expresses nothing in particular. He glances at Slade’s eyes and apparently sees fit to explain: “Bruises.” 

“To be expected when you allow yourself to be beaten,” Slade replies, apparently pitiless. 

“I don’t  _ allow myself _ . I lose,” Oliver replies. 

“When you grow tired of being beaten, you’ll stop losing,” he insists. 

“You mean I’ll win?” Oliver asks as he uncaps the bottle. 

“I would not go that far if I’m the opponent you’re talking about. If they’re the hired hands Fyers has brought to this island to serve his ends. Those young men with armor but no conviction of character? Maybe,” Slade replies. He isn’t sure why his tongue has become so loose. It’s probably just that he has not had anyone to vent to in such a long time. 

Perhaps that is the salvation Yao Fei has sent him. Another human. Simply a witness to these last days of his life. At this point, if he were a weaker man, he might consider it enough. He looks away from Oliver’s eyes, down at the makeshift floor beneath them. 

“Oh, you’re so cocky. But they’re not the ones who’ve been beating the crap out of me. I’ll get you, one day,” Oliver replies proudly. His voice sounds less wet now. 

It finally occurs to Slade that he had not been paying much attention before Oliver had fallen asleep. When he peers back at him in the single light he has kept on for the night, he notices the redness that seems to be concentrated around his eyes and his nostrils. 

It seems almost novel. Oliver is still soft enough to allow himself to cry. And somehow, it seems like something more worthy of sad, resigned respect than ridicule. 

Without knowing what he is doing, Slade reaches out and claps his hand down against Oliver’s leg, just above his knee. 

Oliver yelps in response. 

“Quiet,” Slade hisses at him. 

“You hit me!” Oliver complains, but then he takes a swig of water as if finding a way to silence himself. 

Slade’s hand stays where it is. 

“Oh,” Oliver says when he lets his lips pop off of the mouth of the bottle. 

“‘Oh,’” Slade mocks him as he squeezes around Oliver’s kneecap, eliciting another evasive movement but less of a yelp this time. He smiles to himself. Oliver isn’t a friend to him yet, and ally seems like such a cheap word, but he is something. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I really like Island Era stuff from _Arrow_ , and I got the first paragraph as a frame in my head from the time I read your prompt. I know that canon-compliance may not be the most exciting thing in the world, but I hope you like it! Oliver and Slade's relationship throughout the show was one of the most gratifying things ever to me, especially when they gave Slade a really satisfying redemption arc. Anyway, I had fun writing it and hope you enjoy reading.


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